[WIP][1.8.x] SSTULabs - Low Part Count Solutions (Orbiters, Landers, Lifters) - Dev Thread [11-18-18]

[mechanicH]

Just now, Jimbodiah said:

Did anyone mention Icarus?

YESSSSS!!!!!!  you actually built it.....wow ....Just WOW.

[Jimbodiah]

Not really accurate, but wanted to try out the new CFG parts and needed an excuse to start up KSP

Did 10K ly in Elite today, so my brain is fried and needs some stimulation.

[tater]

New career to test balance... messing with an SSTU probe (the core is the first available). I made a nose for it out of a tank with EC and MP. It has >1700 EC. Cannot make the Mun without running out of charge. I can turn off SAS for a mk1 capsule, and that does just fine. Why is the probe using so much EC? (I know it's stock, I'm just ranting).

Edited November 21, 2016 by tater

[mechanicH]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Cannot make the Mun without running out of charge

now many batteries and solar panels did you put on?

[tater]

47 minutes ago, mechanicH said:

now many batteries and solar panels did you put on?

None. Just batteries. It was a new career, and I was aiming to send an unmanned mun probe. Of course the stock tree is absurd to start with, but I figured that with SSTU, I'd try making a tank full of EC... 1700 is not enough, lol.

Not a complaint about SSTU, it's stock power use. Seems like I should be able to have a probe last more than 2 days.

Actually, the SSTU probe core needs this new line that stock has in 1.2:

Quote

    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleCommand
        minimumCrew = 0
        RESOURCE
        {
            name = ElectricCharge
            rate = 0.03
        }
        hasHibernation = True
    }

 

        hasHibernation = True
 

Edited November 21, 2016 by tater

[Shadowmage]

19 hours ago, tater said:

The solar stuff is still indestructible, is that intended, or on a todo list (I checked the todo list at github, and didn't see it, though perhaps I just skimmed over it).

Yeah, SAS isn't really the right term, because that would let you point it anyplace in KSP. The stability aspect of SAS in the game is what I was after, not the control. You could control a torus somewhat by adjusting the counter-rotation, and precess it, though.

Solar indestructibility -- technically they should have the same impact resistance of whatever part that they belong to for panels that have colliders (although I think a stock bug prevents the part from exploding; see the 'single collider only will trigger explosions' stock bug I reported...like a year ago...still not fixed).  -Thermal- problems are on the TODO list to clean up/look into (they should be able to burn up).  Technically the panels should also break under extreme wind conditions, the same as the stock panels (unless I broke that code recently...).

This are physically unbreakable for a few reasons: 1.) until/unless there is a stock way to replace solar panels, they should take a lot more than a sneeze to break them; a kerbal brushing one on EVA should not make it break.  2.)  It would be bad for performance to add colliders to many of the solar panels; the way they are rigged many would require 20+ colliders -each-.  3.)  On parts with multiple integrated solar panels I haven't found a clean way to only break 1 panel out of a set; currently it is all-or-nothing.  4.)  There is no way to 'repair' / 'replace' a single solar panel on a part that has multiple integrated panels.

So, to fully answer your question:  part intentional, part stock bug, and part 'haven't found a better way to handle it'.

 

16 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Did anyone mention Icarus?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I intended to fix up that solar-panel shading/lighting weirdness over the weekend (second image).  But of course as soon as I sat down to debug it, the problem went away.  Have you found any specific way to trigger it?  For me it seemed to be very inconsistent, requiring specific lighting angles, and even at that I wasn't able to duplicate it this weekend for debugging (it seemed to be fixed).

[Jimbodiah]

Euhm, you can repair stock panels that are broken? That is new to me, I used to ditch the entire craft and send up a new one

[tater]

Yeah, engineers with high enough skill fix them like wheels, I think.

I agree they can be too fragile (panels), but they are also generally the most fragile thing on any craft. I never noticed until trying to hit the CFG-D last night because I don't ever crash into things, lol, I'm fairly methodical about docking.

[mechanicH]

http://imgur.com/Pi78ZZi

http://imgur.com/NxqRoSq

 

Just a little something.....finally got the big girl inflated. Ashe is looking FINE.

Edited November 21, 2016 by mechanicH

[Shadowmage]

53 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Euhm, you can repair stock panels that are broken? That is new to me, I used to ditch the entire craft and send up a new one

Not as far as I'm aware -- that was the point I was trying to make; stock has no provisions for repairing broken solar panels, and until they do I don't feel it is okay to have panels break.

 

 

[acc]

22 hours ago, tater said:

There has been no HAB-D for a while now. The HAB parts are substantially reworked with the previous release. Read the release notes at github.

https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases

 

That's sad. No more BEAM for my ISS... :<

[tater]

9 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Not as far as I'm aware -- that was the point I was trying to make; stock has no provisions for repairing broken solar panels, and until they do I don't feel it is okay to have panels break.

In non-testing careers I always have KIS/KAS, and the engineers can repair panels. My mistake above about stock, I thought it was stock behavior, lol.

I'd argue that even in stock breaking panels good, since it makes docking less trivial. A collision should matter. Spindly solar panels should be pretty fragile, IMO. EVA collisions are certainly more of an issue, but that also results in design decisions, which is a good thing---don't put the solar arrays near the airlocks or docking ports.

4 minutes ago, acc said:

That's sad. No more BEAM for my ISS... :<

I was gonna ask which the HAB-D was, as I could not remember, lol. The reality is that it's really a sort of useless, testbed part, though.

Edited November 21, 2016 by tater

[blowfish]

Stock deployable solar panels (and all deployable parts) actually have custom handling for collisions.

[acc]

@ShadowmageIn a future update, will there be another inflateable hab like the ST-HUB-D? Really miss that thing. Was the BEAM on my ISS replica.

49 minutes ago, tater said:

I was gonna ask which the HAB-D was, as I could not remember, lol. The reality is that it's really a sort of useless, testbed part, though.

 

I liked it very much. Was also great for radial attachment, without taking so much space like the other inflateable habs.

Edited November 21, 2016 by acc

[tater]

The new 1.25m inflatable (-A I think) is pretty small, actually.

[acc]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

The new 1.25m inflatable (-A I think) is pretty small, actually.

but still long and has windows. not really Beam-like

[Jimbodiah]

You could copy it from an old release, should still work.

[Shadowmage]

2 hours ago, acc said:

@ShadowmageIn a future update, will there be another inflateable hab like the ST-HUB-D? Really miss that thing. Was the BEAM on my ISS replica.

I liked it very much. Was also great for radial attachment, without taking so much space like the other inflateable habs.

Possibly, in the far future.  I have saved the mesh, and you may see something -similar- in the BaseCore series of parts (though, of course, it will have a flat bottom, and be intended for use on bases, probably as a temporary expansion or emergency shelter of some sort).

In reality, the BEAM module is useless on the ISS.  They don't use it for... well.. anything, and the airlock is locked at (nearly) all times.  It is there merely for in-space validation and testing of the expandable module concept; to see how well it holds up in space.  At no point is the module scheduled for any real use; no habitation, no equipment, no activities, nothing.

TL:DR -- I would rather have useful and usable modules on my space station, not prototypes intended only for testing purposes...  (also see the many, many, posts I've made regarding my stance on replica stuff...)

 

6 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

You could copy it from an old release, should still work.

Indeed -- nothing stopping someone from using the old models and configs from previous releases.  However that particular model will never be receiving textures or any updated functionality.

 

 

[tater]

Windows, I presume?

 

I've seen the radiators on many images (not needed in KSP).

[Jimbodiah]

20 minutes ago, tater said:

(not needed in KSP).

Unless you are using the NERV engine for long burns, or drills, or ISRU, or with mods    Such a shame really, as it is an interesting game mechanic. I don't see why the LS systems don't use this mechanic, as stations often show being in excess of 70°C hot, so radiators could serve a function here by maintaining a better internal temperature.  @RoverDude  

Edited November 22, 2016 by Jimbodiah

[Temeter]

2 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Unless you are using the NERV engine for long burns, or drills, or ISRU, or with mods    Such a shame really, as it is an interesting game mechanic. I don't see why the LS systems don't use this mechanic, as stations often show being in excess of 70°C hot, so radiators could serve a function here by maintaining a better internal temperature.  @RoverDude  

Probably because the game - mostly timewarp - is far too unreliable to handle temperatures that have a bigger impact.

And because the last time temperatures had any impact people complained about their ships blowing up, and heat basically got scrapped. Makes me wonder why we even have such a performance-heavy system when it doesn't really do anything.

[Jimbodiah]

Wel, so is food/electricity/boiloff which are all used anyway ;). The problem there is the stock behavior during high warps.

The thermal system works fine on reactors and mining gear, so it's a useable system. An option to disable the heat system might be something to please both camps.

[RoverDude]

5 hours ago, Temeter said:

Probably because the game - mostly timewarp - is far too unreliable to handle temperatures that have a bigger impact.

And because the last time temperatures had any impact people complained about their ships blowing up, and heat basically got scrapped. Makes me wonder why we even have such a performance-heavy system when it doesn't really do anything.

It does quite a bit, actually.  The whole 'ships blowing up' bit was fixed ages ago, and we also have core heat to handle heavier systems like ISRU and drills.

[Temeter]

10 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

It does quite a bit, actually.  The whole 'ships blowing up' bit was fixed ages ago, and we also have core heat to handle heavier systems like ISRU and drills.

Also true, but it just feels so underused for such a complex system.

I thought it was good ships would blow up. Managing heat on nuclear ships was fun.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Temeter

[Shadowmage]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 0:00 AM, tater said:

None. Just batteries. It was a new career, and I was aiming to send an unmanned mun probe. Of course the stock tree is absurd to start with, but I figured that with SSTU, I'd try making a tank full of EC... 1700 is not enough, lol.

Not a complaint about SSTU, it's stock power use. Seems like I should be able to have a probe last more than 2 days.

Actually, the SSTU probe core needs this new line that stock has in 1.2:

        hasHibernation = True
 

On the note of probe-core EC use in general -- yeah, it needs a balance pass.  Pretty sure the CM's/SM's are all using the same ec/s setting.  As discussed on the issue tracker, this will probably come along with a set of part-upgrades to enable greater probe-core functionality (perhaps increasing the EC/s use as the capabilities are increased).

 

 

22 hours ago, blowfish said:

Stock deployable solar panels (and all deployable parts) actually have custom handling for collisions.

Indeed.

Eventually I would like to be able to handle broken panels/wheels/legs/rcs-blocks/etc -- but I've got a lot more going on in my PartModules than the stock ones do, which greatly increases the complexity of such features (notably, support for multiple sub-parts in a single module).  Its certainly doable, but I can't take the same simple approaches that stock parts do, and have a lot more inter-connected details to manage.

On the solar panels, the first problem to solve would be -- how to create colliders for such complex panels without resorting to gobs of smaller colliders?  Next would be how to keep the deployment animation for the parts from being able to impart forces to the craft? (e.g. you should not be able to launch yourself by extending solar panels).  Those are the main reasons that panels don't have colliders. 

After they are solved, adding in some collision callbacks to break panels/disable meshes wouldn't be too hard; keeping track of what is/not broken would be a minor difficulty, but solvable.  Code to repair the panels/parts isn't too hard either (just more UI controls on already busy parts).